Felix
M icah stalks across the sprawling lawn that thrives in the summer warmth, spongy green grass that spreads from the edge of our pool and disappears into the expansive trees surrounding our property.
The property we were raised on.
Abused on.
Witnessed murder, and committed murder, on.
This is our home, even if the house is haunted by the ghosts of our past and the gardens are haunted by the women who now fertilize the soil.
But if a man were brave enough to look past the morbid and focus on what we’re building now, he might notice the botanical artistry, hand-created and lovingly tended to by my brother.
As for me, my focus goes to my beautiful wife, eight months pregnant and so fucking stunning in a two-piece bathing suit I hardly notice the rage my brother constantly carries.
Christabelle sits on the edge of our pool and gently wades into the water, her rounded belly unnoticeable except when she stands side-on.
From behind, she looks no different from the woman I met inside an opulent ballroom in Manhattan… a mere moment before I threatened her life and fell in love.
I prefer to remind her of the second. Not the first.
I watch her slender frame cut through the water, one arm over, then the other, as her long, dark hair follows and extends most of the length of her back.
She’s always been a water person. Swimming every chance she could get. Doing laps to calm her brain. Floating, especially now that she carries the added weight of my unborn baby.
Boy or girl? I have no fucking clue, and though we have the technology to find out, and I have the patience of a spoiled child, Christabelle wanted the surprise.
For her, I’ll do whatever, be whatever, say whatever to ensure her happiness.
“You’re souring my morning.” I settle back on the cast iron chair that overlooks the yard, taking my coffee mug from the table and crossing one ankle over the opposite knee.
I used to come out here each morning to read the paper and get a little sun.
Now, I come out here to watch her .
“I’m enjoying the view, Micah, but you’re walking around with a giant gray cloud on your shoulders.”
“Something’s coming. Something bad.” He stops on the other side of the table in a suit not too dissimilar to mine.
Black pants and jacket, despite the heat, and a crisp white shirt beneath.
His hair is still wet from his shower, and his mood, crabby, since Tiia’s already in the car and on her way to the city.
“Cato called me last night after you and Christabelle went to bed.”
“Okay…?” I bring my coffee up and take a sip. “Problem?”
“He said Minka and Archer have gotta fly out for some case today. They don’t know where they’re going yet, just that it’s a few hours on a plane.”
“Okay…?” I peel my eyes away from Christabelle and bring them around. “That’s not entirely normal. Is there a reason they’re working a case not within their jurisdiction?”
“Yeah. Sophia fucking Solomon,” he growls. “She called and asked them to come as a personal favor to her.”
My heart jumps, and my brows furrow. Fuck knows Sophia Solomon is…
eccentric. In the sense that she’s a wildcard.
She’s powerful and brutal. She works silently when silence is needed and really fucking loudly when the occasion calls for it.
She has no qualms about killing a man herself or sending someone else to do the job, and though I can’t say that’s an unrelatable trait, I do know she’s not like us.
She doesn’t come from the world we do. Not in the most technical, obvious sense. So me ordering someone’s death and her ordering someone’s death… they hit differently.
“Archer agreed to this?”
“Cato said he’s pissed, but Mayet’s willing to go.”
“And because she’s willing to go, he’s gonna follow, even if he’s unhappy about it.” I drag my gaze back to Christabelle and consider what to do.
Should I do anything at all? God knows, Archer spent most of his life without me and Micah watching over his shoulder.
“Fuck.” Exhaling a noisy sigh, I drag my hand over my face and pinch the bridge of my nose. “Cato’s feeling weird about it? His sensors are pinging?”
“He’s not sure how he feels about it. Just that it’s a weird request by a woman who kinda comes from a rival family, who wields too much power, and wouldn’t take no for an answer when Archer pushed back.”
I slide my tongue across the front of my teeth and consider.
Plan. Divert a fucking plane, maybe? Call in a bomb threat to toss Sophia’s plans off kilter.
Whatever her intentions are, she’d have them scheduled to the minute.
So a single missed flight, a delay in transfers, a slow-moving cab…
these could be the difference between success or failure.
“I wanna trust her,” I grit out. Swallowing, I set my coffee down and look his way. “I do. She’s come through for us in the past?—”
“Nothing comes for free. Not with these types.”
I reach into my pocket and snag my phone— Call her? Call Archer? —but before I get the chance to so much as unlock the screen, the device chirps, and unknown caller flashes above the red and green icons.
Wary, I swipe to answer and put the call on speaker. “This is Felix.”
“Felix. This is Sophia Solomon.”
Heavy as a fucking boulder, Micah slams his hands to the iron table, plates and cups rattling in response, and leans over my phone. “What the hell are you up to, Solomon?”
“Your brother and Minka are in danger.” The tap-tap-tap of a computer keyboard ricochets through the line.
Mortar shells pounding in my veins. “I’m gonna send you coordinates as a safety precaution, but I wanted to let you know some shit’s going down right now, and it’s getting a little outside of my control. ”
“The fuck does that mean?” I shove up from my chair, the legs scraping along the ground until the sound alerts Christabelle and brings her to a stop.
She wipes her face and tucks her hair back. I see her in my peripherals, even as my mind circles around the rest of this shit show.
“You’re sending them on a mission today, Solomon. Don’t think I didn’t already hear about it. So explain to me how the fuck they’re following your orders, but now you’re telling me they’re in danger?”
“I don’t control the whole world! Just specific elements within it.
I needed Mayet to run a case for me. It’s important.
But while I’ve got them headed one way, my ear is to the ground—always—and now I’m hearing things.
I’m sending reinforcements to contain the fallout, but I’m starting to think not even my army is big enough for this mess. ”
“ Your mess!” Micah snaps. “This is your mess, Solomon.”
“What’s going on?” Christabelle moves to the edge of the pool, still ten feet from where I stand, and places her hands on the concrete lip. But when she boosts herself up the way she’s done every single day that I’ve known her, her protruding belly scrapes along the coarse exterior.
“Here, Darling.” I stride across and grab her hands, bringing her out of the water and holding on until she’s steady on her feet.
A puddle pools on the ground between us, droplets sitting on her long lashes to make them look a million times longer.
Most startling of all is how her stomach presses to mine, and my baby violently kicks, like it somehow knows I’m near, and it may, just like in every fucking nightmare I have these days, reject me the way my brothers and I rejected our father.
It would be appropriate, I suppose. That another Malone father fails, and the woman and child he wants to own are better off as far from him as possible.
“What’s happening?” Christabelle searches my eyes, fear flickering in her beautiful silver stare as she reads my mood. Worry for Archer and Minka. Terror for the child who might already hate me. “Felix?”
“Kill the mission.” Micah snatches up my phone and circles the table, then grabbing a towel from the pile that never seems to end, he tosses it to me before moving away again. “If you think something bad is going down, you end the mission and divert your enemies. How the fuck do you not know that?”
“Their flight has already left Copeland,” she counters dryly. “So unless I turn an entire commercial plane around, which comes with nothing less than federal attention and a helluva lot more heat than we’re ready for, then there’s nothing I can do until they land.”
“So, how long until they land?” I wrap the towel over Christabelle’s shoulders, then I turn and bring her toward Micah. “Who’s meeting them there? What protections have you put in place?”
“I’ve scrambled all foreign transmissions, so no one besides us and the proper authorities will be able to track the plane. And I have a driver collecting them from the airport. The airport is small. Regional. And the driver is highly trained. One of my best. So he’ll make damn sure they’re safe.”
“So what’s the danger?” Micah cuts in. “You’re calling us just to gossip?”
“I’m calling because your brother is an obsessive fool who can’t leave his wife to travel on her own.”
“Archer?”
“Timothy,” she growls. “I asked for the doctors. I made allowances for the cops. Now I have Timothy Malone the Third hitching a ride— uninvited —which is why things are a helluva lot more complicated, especially since word has already spread underground. If you have a protocol in place for this sort of thing, I suggest you employ it.”
“Protocols for what?” I snarl. “What, Sophia?”
“The heir to the New York throne is traveling with two other Malone brothers! I don’t entirely agree with the British in basically anything they do, but there’s a reason they don’t let successors travel together.
So explain to me, please, why the hell Cato is on that flight, too? With Tim. And Archer.”
“Cato, too?” Horrified, I search Christabelle’s widening eyes. “Why?”
“The day I pretend to understand how a Malone thinks is the day I should probably be put out to pasture. If your jet is already fueled up and ready to go, I suggest you use the damn thing and sweep as many of them off my crime scene as quickly and quietly as you can. I’m putting my men in cars now, but driving is gonna take a lot longer than flying, so if you can get there before us, that might be best.”
“Send me the coordinates of your nearest airstrip,” Micah orders. “We’ll be wheels up in twenty minutes, and we’ll collect you on the way.”
Stunned, she noisily inhales. “You’ll pick us up, too?”
“Yeah. That way, if we arrive in a fucking war zone, and my brothers are harmed, I’ll already have you within arm’s reach.” He kills the call and glares into my eyes. “I told you! I fucking told you, Lix. Bad shit is coming.”
Hissing, Christabelle drops her hands to her belly and snaps her teeth shut. Her face burns red, but her lips glow white. She’s in pain and way too fucking close to full term for this shit.
“Fuck!” My brain tears itself in two. My heart. My entire fucking soul. “Christabelle… I can’t… I don’t…” I press my hand to her belly and feel it. The hardening of her skin. The tightening of her stomach. “I don’t like leaving you here alone…”
“I’m coming with you.” She leans on me, breathing heavily and puffing her cheeks wide. “I’ll pack a bag and be downstairs in two minutes.”
“You can’t come with me!” I push her back just far enough to look into her eyes. “Darling, you can’t fly when you’re this pregnant, and you sure as fuck aren’t invited to this bullshit Sophia has created. I won’t allow it.”
She licks her lips and slows her breathing, calming the sprint of her heart. “Cato’s there.”
“Christabelle—”
“My entire family will be there.” She swallows and steps around me, pulling her towel tight and dragging wet hair over her shoulder. “I assure you, I’m going wherever my family is.” She waddles across the patio tiles and stops at the back door of the house. “Harrison?”
“Christabelle! I said no.”
“Harrison?”
A man not all that different in age compared to me and my brothers steps out of the shadows, dropping his chin and ensuring he looks nowhere but at her feet. “Yes, ma’am? Can I help you with something?”
“I need assistance packing a bag for a couple of days away.”
“A-a bag, ma’am?” His surprised eyes flicker to mine. “Would you like me to call Mary?”
“Guns.” She grabs the lapel of his shirt. “Not clothes. Let’s go.”